The tuesday murder club

Cooking With Christie!

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This Week’s Recipe: Hamburg

Inspiration: I got a new cookbook called — Japanese Soul Cooking: Ramen, Tonkatsu, Tempura, And More From The Streets and Kitchens of Tokyo and Beyond.

And let me tell you, all the recipes look delicious!

The first entry I decided to try is a twist on a recipe my family’s been making for four generations — Hamburgers! (As cooking Japanese food, even comfort classics, intimidates me, I thought I’d ease my way in.) Or, in this case, the Hamburg — which swaps the bun and fixing for a heavenly pan sauce made from ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and sake….

Unfortunately, after we returned home from the shops, I discovered I’d forgotten to purchase the requisite bottle of sake….And swapping sake for one of the tipples we did have on hand — peach vodka or whiskey aged in rum barrels — didn’t feel culinarily wise….

So, rather than running back to the store for the umpteenth time or giving up on the dinner plan, I substituted chicken bone broth with notes of shallot, sage, and shitake mushrooms for the sake. Then, to amp up the flavor, I used the Portlandia brand of spicy Worcestershire sauce. (Seriously, I would highly suggest you find a bottle of this stuff, it is by far and away the tastiest Worcestershire I’ve ever used).

It turned out great!

Christie: I think anything served with a silky pan sauce is at least one rung fancier than one without…. So perhaps if Poirot or Mr. Satterthwaite found themselves served a Hamburg with a nice pickled daikon & carrot salad and a dome of white rice with some furikake garnish — they’d tuck into it with relish!

Even Miss Marple I think would enjoy this dish!

Cooking With Christie!

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This Week’s Recipe: Sheet pan Chicken Dinner

The Inspiration: I caught a cold (not covid), and I didn’t want to put together a complicated dinner. So I coated the chicken thighs in unsalted butter, the potatoes in olive oil & granulated garlic, and the carrots in olive oil, turmeric, & cayenne. Then I put the lot onto a foil-lined jelly-roll pan and shoved it into a 425 degrees pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.

Bing, bang, boom, dinner done! And it was pretty tasty.

(Though next time, I will use a tad less olive oil on the veggies and a more spices.)

Christie: This again is something I can see Tuppence or Miss Marple making for a weeknight dinner…and perhaps even Captain Hastings before he got married because it’s so easy to make!

Cooking With Christie!

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This Week’s Recipe: Tom Yum Soup

The Inspiration: I am a fan of Guy’s Grocery Games on Food Network. Recently I was rewatching the Ultimate Spicy Games and one of the chefs, who’s from Thailand, made tom yum soup*. While watching her prepare the dish, I realized (so long as I’ve got more than thirty minutes) I can totally make this dish!

Turns out the most challenging part was finding the lime leaves! 

After visiting a half dozen grocery stores (my husband is fantastic), I finally found them – and frozen shrimp, which weren’t treated with sulfates! Which was a huge score! (Fun Fact: The sulfates help the little guys turn a deeper shade of pink when you cook them up.) 

Once I finally had everything, I used these two recipes to base my version on – one’s by Spruce Eats and the other on recipetineats.

Now, I stuck pretty close to the recipe for the broth, which was interesting. Because when I tasted the broth, before adding the veggies and the shrimp, I thought I had done something wrong. As the lemongrass and lime leaves made it kind of sour. However, after I cooked the veggies and shrimp in the broth – it transformed into the tastiest dish! 

BTW – I added a bunch of extra veggies to the dish because I couldn’t help myself: bell pepper, Fresno pepper, zucchini, and enoki mushrooms.

(*Of course, while writing this post, I rewatched the episode again…and discovered I did NOT pay very close attention. Patty, my inspiration, did not make tom yum soup – she made tom sapp soup. *sigh*)

Christie: Now, I can’t see Miss Marple making this for herself…However, if her nephew Raymond West had sent her to Thailand rather than the Caribbean for a vacation – I think she’d have tried it and loved it. (Especially since you can easily adjust the spice level.)